From Panel to Play: Professor X

To me, my X-Men! For today’s From Panel to Play, we are looking at the introduction of a long-requested, fan-favorite character. His team made a splash when they arrived in the game’s second year, and now the founder of the X-Men is ready to hit the battlefield. Join us as we take a look at Charles Xavier, better known as Professor X!

Charles Xavier is a man with a dream, a dream that has shaped his life’s purpose for years and impacted not just himself and those that have met him but the entire world. His dream seems simple on the surface, peaceful coexistence between mutants and humans, but is more difficult than he ever imagined. In an effort to shelter and protect innocent mutants from oppression, he founded a school on the grounds of his ancestral home. He also saw a need to protect both humanity and mutant kind from those who would use their powers for evil, which eventually led to forming his students into the team known as the X-Men.

Don’t let the hoverchair mislead you, Professor X is going to be no slouch on the battlefield! This 4 threat character is an asset to any team he joins and unsurprisingly brings a new Leadership to the Uncanny X-men affiliation. Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters is an interesting new direction for the affiliation and really shines when you build your squad based on one of Xavier’s guiding tenants; people working together in harmony.

Now that we’ve teased a few things, let’s start the meat of the article off with a look at the basics that make up this character. As would be expected for a character for a 4 Threat level, he has a respectable 6 Stamina on his Healthy Side. You will be pleased to know that he even has a Medium movement-this hoverchair definitely isn’t creeping along.

Professor X has 3 different attack options available to him, all centered around making full use of his prodigious telepathic powers. His “go to” attack option is a quick and simple Psychic Dart. This 5 Strength attack can reach out to Range 4 and provides him Power equal to the Damage he deals. It also has the benefit of confusing his target when he rolls a Wild in the attack roll, which will apply the Root special condition. This special condition muddles his opponents mind and forces them to spend additional power to use their superpowers!

When he is in a position to expend just a little more effort towards attacking his opponent (in the form of spending 1 Power to make the attack), he can place a Mental Suggestion in their mind. This Range 3, Strength 6 attack not only assaults them directly, if they fail to entirely fend it off, it allows him to Advance them their Speed. The utility of an attack that allows you to force the enemy to either retreat from a vulnerable ally or advance into your strongest forces makes this one of his strongest options.

We then have his final attack, where he unleashes his full power and engages in an Astral Duel with his opponent’s mind. Costing him 3 Power to unleash, it can reach out to Range 3 and starts at a base 4 Strength. The special rules of this attack really amp up its power though, as you add dice to the attack roll equal to the targets Mystic defense (meaning you are almost always making at least a 7 dice attack!). Then to really top things off, as a master of the mind Xavier is able to prevent his target from rerolling or modifying their defense dice.

As alluded to earlier in the article, Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters is the new Leadership for the Uncanny X-Men and really works with the themes of collaboration and cooperation that are a staple of Professor X’s philosophy. This Leadership is simple at its heart, but can be leveraged in countless ways and is really going to reward players that like to build Rube Goldberg machines. Once per turn, when an allied character spends 1 or more Power to use an active or reactive superpower, after the effect is
resolved, another allied character may gain 1 Power. Imagine the possibilities available to you when you can bounce power around between your entire squad across the distance of the entire table!

Professor’s Guidance is the one reactive superpower available to Professor X and embodies the supportive nature of this character. This superpower allows him to spend between 1 & 3 power to allow an allied character to reroll dice during their attack or defense rolls. Keep in mind as well that due to the nature of the Leadership working on any turn (even an opponent’s), Professor X can use this superpower to not only provide rerolls to an allied character being attacked, he can potentially enable a reactive superpower of that characters or even set up a different character for the following turn!

Next up for Professor X is his first innate superpower. Telepathic Lock means that Charles can use his Mystic defense against any attack type unless the attacker pays 2 Power to overcome this rule. This means you often won’t be bothered by this lower Physical and Energy defense, as you will be rolling 6 defense dice instead!

Finally, we have a power that helps represent the fact that he is an Omega-Level Telepath. This innate superpower means that Charles cannot be Pushed or Advance by Mystic attacks or enemy superpowers. No one can overpower the mind of Professor X!

That’s it for today’s article, be sure to pre-order your copy of the Professor X and Shadow King character pack at your local game store or through our webstore today. Also, be sure to check back later for yet another installment of From Panel to Play, the series where we give you your first look at how your favorite characters transition to the tabletop in Marvel: Crisis Protocol.

Until next time, Atomic Mass Transmissions, signing off!